


Syuko Bullshits a Ramen Recipe for the First Time in Her Life

by EmeliaK



Category: THE iDOLM@STER, The iDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls
Genre: F/F, a dash of some antics, plenty of bantering, plenty of cooking, with piquant notes of a roughly good time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 17:08:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17605430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeliaK/pseuds/EmeliaK
Summary: Because Sae's over soon, and Shiki's got her trapped.Don't worry. At least she roughly knows how to cook in the first place.





	Syuko Bullshits a Ramen Recipe for the First Time in Her Life

**Author's Note:**

> (T for not-G talk, and not too much else. Have fun!)

"Shiki, funny stuff. 'dja know the ramen place near my apartment's closed for refurbishing?"

"Aha~. What about it?"

"Well, I'm gonna be cookin' instant packet stuff for Sae, since I've called her and I'm gettin' her over here instead. Which'll be hilarious. See, because, I originally promised to treat her at seven to some real--"

Shiki snorts, and then hangs up.

"--tonkotsu okay fine. Don't care if you fuck yerself, then."

 

* * *

 

 

Twenty minutes later, who shows up at Syuko's door? Shiki shows up at Syuko's door! Slinging a duffel bag over her shoulder, with every ingredient for every ramen known to human history clanking around inside.

"I'm gonna dump all of this on your kitchen counter in plain sight, and I know just how full your few cupboards already are 'cause I was the one who helped you move in, so there's no way you're hiding any of this~."

"Shiki, what's this meant ta do? I'm already disappointin' Sae by redirectin' her precious time into Casa Shiomi. You think I think a mess in't funnier on top a' that?"

"Sure, if it was just a mess~. But watch what happens when you have the culinary world right at your fingertips, and instead you try to go for two plastic packets, in front of Sae's very, very eyes. That's not that much of a joke, don't you get it~?"

"Don't get it, babs. I can just tell her 'sorry, I don't actually know how ta make this stuff', right?"

"Ah-ah-ah. How much time's she got?"

"An hour, I think. She's got other arrangements wi' normal people after ohhhhhh, shit, you're right. She doesn't have enough time ta help me make somethin', so she'll get mildly pissed at me for seein' all-- wait, I can just tell her _you_  dumped all a' this on me, 'cause _you_  wanted ta screw me over. She'll get that. She knows Ichinose."

"Syuko~." This is the condescending voice. "I don't got anywhere else to be. Lemme help out, huh?" Shiki does a really condescending condescending voice.

"Are you threatenin' ta camp me on _my_  ground?"

"Weeell, more pertinently, I'm here to guide you with this..." Shiki digs into the back of her coat, which is obviously where she carries everything instead of having a bag with a measurable capacity like a normal denizen of the Earth, and she pulls out...

Oh, fuck. Every single page she's flashing down to every single scribble in that thing is her handwriting. "No, this fuckin'... Great Tome a' Shiki Cookery or whatever, I can just tell her _you_  dumped this on me too."

"Nyaha. Well, well, well. Hoping you'd be a little more gracious, but at this point I'm gonna reveal that you miiiight wanna reconsider being _so_  super negative."

"What? What's yer game here?"

"What game? All I did was I called Sae just after you called me, and delightfully informed her - she's got a super nice voice, by the way, silken smooth over the airwaves, rare talent in those kinds of bandwidths - that I'd be dropping off some supplies for you since you wanted to, weeeeell... make an effort in exchange for getting your plans all fucky-wucky. Even rattled off the list of nearly everything you'd aaaasked--"

And she puts that word in laboured, hunched-over air-quotes, drilling wide-open deadpan eyes up at Syuko's face, like this whole thing just wasn't obvious enough.

"--for, before she stopped me about, mmm, a minute in. See, she knows Ichinose, so she knows I'm all up in your grill when it comes to... ooh, supplying some chemistry~."

(Shut up. Syuko has enough brains not to try anything that has rats frothing at the mouth.) "So you just told her I'm makin' her my own homemade ramen."

"Aaaaand my call explained the mess she'll walk into as a result, which makes me the kindest fellow scientific colleague on the planet." Syuko does not like how creepy she sounds when she's verbose, either. "C'mon, Syu, I'm offering to stay here until she comes to help, and do you reaaaally want to call her and tell her you're not going the mile? It was a joke? You're not _actually_  doing anything with all these ingredients I carried over just for widdle wickle you? Nyaha, I dunno if she was expecting the world from you _before_ , buuuut..."

Syuko puts one finger to her lips, and inhales deeply.

"Okay."

This is a lot. This is a complicated lot. Shiki has managed to bend the situation straight through itself.

"Yeah. Now you've fucked me."

The simplest way out? Time to bullshit a ramen recipe for the first time in her life.

 

* * *

 

 

Everything's on the counter. The book's on the table. Syuko's on the floor. "I dunno what to fuckin' maaaaake..."

"Nyaha. Look at the book, Syu. The book knows all."

Syuko snaps. "You're givin' me, like, three hours to do this! I don't know how ta make good fuckin' ramen in three hours! Don't think anyone does-- a smug face will not count as a response in this house, Shiki."

Shiki smugly opens her smug mouth. "Doesn't have to be _good_  good. Tasty's good enough, right?"

"It's all the same to me, Shiki, bairn. It's all cuisine. I don't have hands for cuisine. These hands were made for... for, uh..."

"I got you, I got you. Break down what makes a ramen to me, then, and you can work from there."

"Aaahhh, goddd, you fuckin' pain in the rear end. Ramen! Uhh, soup, noodles, everythin' else."

"Poor analysis. Two outta ten, I'm giving that. What ramen were you aiming for today?"

"Ton--" Syuko stops herself the instant she realises what she was about to do to herself.

But it's too late. "Aha~. Tonkotsu it is. You picked a tricky one to do so quickly--"

"No, wait, I'll do a sho--"

"Nope, tonkotsu. First thing's the broth, then, which I have the bones for here -" Shiki pats something on the counter, which Syuko's not looking at because Syuko has way more important things to look at like the _floor_  and her life before her eyes while she's at it - "and all you gotta do is boil it. I peg at least two hours for, like, something to happen? It'll be, y'know, not _top stuff_ , but good for your first try, and def good enough for acceptable home cooking."

"Fuck. Alright. None a' this matters anyway." Syuko gets off the floor, and Shiki parasitically wraps herself around Syuko's back to form a weird double-human-walker configuration - "Mmhmm, now that's the spirit, girl~" - and staggers the two of them over into the kitchen space.

"'kay, Shiomi-sensei, get your--"

"Oh, fuck you. I don't have a pot. I don't have a boilin' pot thing."

This gives Shiki pause.

"None?"

"Remember when you asked for 'em all so you could make me... jelly or somethin'?" Two gallons of probably fucked up but edible gelatine coming back to her in a few days sounded like a hilarious idea at the time, but what Present Syuko sees in the now is Past Syuko flipping the two straightest birds ever.

"Ohhhhhhh. I'm still working on that back at the lab. Nah, 'kay, leave that then. I think a pressure cooker'll work. Pressure cooker?"

"I'm lazy _and_  self-respectin'. 'course I got a pressure cooker."

"We can do that."

Syuko's finding this do-cooking-with-a-sociopathic-mess-of-hair-stuck-to-your-back-like-an-alien thing a little hard, but knows she's not dealing with someone reasonable enough to get off her even if she goes 'no, seriously'. She manages to get the pressure cooker out regardless. Water in, weird pork bone disc things - her kitchen counter's been made too overwhelming to look at with the naked eye, holy shit, Shiki - in, and on a ring.

"How long's this for?" Syuko inquires very innocently, turning the heat on.

"I'm gonna let you guess," Shiki replies.

"Alright, fine, gimme the book an' I'll read the recipe."

"My recipe's for super-real tonkotsu, so I only put the broth down as, like, two straight days of boiling."

"What."

"Nyahaha. You're in virgin territory. Cheap pseudo-tonkotsu à la Shiomi. Don't worry, you don't need to figure out how to bullshit the noodles and the chashu. Those should be the same."

"Bullshit the noodles? How hard can noodles-- you want me ta make the _noodles_  from scratch? Shiki, I know I'm gettin' super topped all food-ways right now, but I just told you I don't have the _hands_. I need hands for that."

"Fiiiiine. Go run to the store and buy some noodles, but I'm not letting go of you the whole way, and I think you hecka need to feel shame forever for chickening out at this part~."

Syuko grunts. Convenience and back's ten minutes, and the pressure cooker usually takes way longer to heat up because her stovetop is junk, but she's not so sure she can keep on her record's tail with Shiki-shaped limiters. "You gonna need some of my blood ta make this run?"

"That's sharp, Syu! You want me to go all hemolytic from your B? Like, c'mon, I'm jealous you barely got anaemic as well from being on all your old shit."

"I ate solid blocks a' factory iron from waste chutes. Girl's gotta make do. Let's go go go."

 

* * *

 

 

They're back with a couple packs of noodles. It took over twenty minutes. She told every single person Shiki walked them too close to to "just ignore us, we've got cameras rollin' somewhere an' we don't know where, so act natural, huh?". Humbling experience.

The pressure cooker still isn't fully there, which is overall surprising, unsurprising and mildly upsetting to Syuko in equal spades, but this doesn't perturb Zero-Distance Shadower Shiki, who is humming the day away.

"Yeah, Shiki, okay, love you, but can ya clam yer singin' for two seconds and literally get off my back?"

"Not until you make the chashu, nyaha." Shiki palms the cling-film-wrapped rolls of pork off the counter and starts bapping Syuko on the head with one.

"I'm lookin' at the book, okay? Jesus, yer handwriting's appallin' as ever..." Syuko can barely even read whatever this kana scrawl says. Beer?... no, peel?... waller? Kaytay? "Shiki, what does this say ta put the pork in?"

"Oh! A beer cooler."

"That's..." Yep, Syuko can interpret these lines that way. "Yeah, that's great. I have one a' those. What the fuck, Shiki? The fuck do I do with a beer cooler ta make chashu?"

"Keep adding hot water to it, and... yeah, you can get it cooked pretty okay in two hours. Suits your budget, even. Aha."

"A cooler's for coolin', in't it?"

"A cooler's for insulating. Insulation rolls either way. Outside hot, inside cold? Inside hot, outside cold."

"Oh, jesus..." The sound of a mind expanding. "Yeah, I see yer point. Is this goin' ta wreck the cooler, though? Because I don't have a normal pot ta stew this in otherwise. But I do appreciate bein' able to tell Sae the pork was done in the same case twenty Asahis went."

"Hope she doesn't ask about the noodles~."

"Shut."

"Yeah, you'll be fine. I'll deal you a new, totes highest-grade cooler if we somehow wreck this one, 'kay?"

"I hope we do, then. I wanna see, say, a solid case wi' liquid nitrogen runnin' through it. I want absolute-zero cans."

"Science says no, but Shiki says yes. Now let's case up some chashu, nyaha."

 

A beer cooler with a water level really is a new sight to Syuko. There's some veggies and flavourings in there along with the pork (Syuko's pretty sure that fuckin' book'd say exactly what, but she just threw in what looked right - sake and mirin? She knows "soup" goes with those words - and Shiki made some affirmative-sounding Shiki noises at everything Syuko added), and every time she pours another freshly-boiled One Point Seven Litres in, she has to slam the lid back on immediately afterwards.

"Yeah, just keep getting those kettlefuls in! Ideally, you'd get, like, 15l in all at once and just keep pouring on top of that every ten or so minutes to compensate for gradual temp loss, but hey, home setting, right? I like someone who can improv."

At least the pressure cooker's finally up to temp, so that can stay on a low heat forever now.

"Can I sap water from my boiler?"

"If you wanna die, Syu."

"You seen how much Sae's family even _looks_  like it's worth? Hell, she gets _treated_  as an heiress. Not riskin' killing her off."

"C'mon, think about you, girl, you're gonna make me sad. You got people who love you too. They just wanna love you from a distance, s'all."

"I'm an idol! I got my own place! I'm livin'. They'll be callin' me back any day ta run the store, just you watch." Syuko has another kettle filled from the hot tap (it's a shortcut, okay!) down and flicked on. "How much more do I need?"

"15 over 1.7. Do some brain training, Syu~. It's good for you."

"Uh." Syuko freezes and gazes off at the ceiling, hand on the kettle handle.

"Aww. Poor Syuko no have good head."

"I've got some great head!"

"15 over 17's almost 1, so 15 over 1.7's almost 10. Baseline nine kettles, right?"

"Shiki, someone's gonna buy their hands onta _your_  head an' cut out yer brain for some barmy AI nonsense if you show off how smart you are all the time. Even once I get nine kettles in I'm gonna need ta keep goin' by your instruction."

"Nyaha. Don't worry, I'll take over by the topping-up phase. I mean, you're pretty much done here anyway - once it's almost showtime, noodles in the broth, then drop some scallions in and the chashu on top - ooh, boil some eggs in here once the chashu's out - uhh, do you know if Sae has any preferences? You went eating with her once at a place, right?"

"I fucked with her so bad on that visit. An' she just ordered what I ordered - see, the joke is I'd already decided ta order what she ordered - so, uh, we're good on that front."

"Just tell her to take anything she wants off the counter, really. Nyaha."

Kettle #4 is ready. Syuko's kind of digging this - it's a precise routine, supplying this thing with fresh water as carefully as possible. Shiki sure knows how to make her experiments engaging, Syuko'll give her that.

 

And there's kettle #9. Open, look away from the steam, pour the kettle out, slam shut.

"You made it, Syuko! The fabled wonderland of just waiting for your ingredients now. I say hours or whatever, but both the broth and the chashu are the longer the better in your timeframe, so don't worry, you can take those out when you need to. Whaddaya wanna do now?"

Syuko's butt hits the kitchen tiles hard, and she lies back on the floor with a pent-up sigh of relief, covering her eyes. "Nothingggg."

"Yeah, I getcha, girl." From out of whatever nowhere she was, Shiki's suddenly clambering on top of Syuko, which she notices first by Shiki's hair hitting her. When Syuko moves her hands away, she sees Shiki leaned in low, displaying the same coy smile as ever. No hint of extraneous lust? No naughty-looking lookie-look?

"Get off me if ya aren't gonna do anythin'."

"Just observing~." On that, Syuko shuts her eyes tight and grumbles.

Shiki can do whatever the fuck she wants as long as she's not trying bare skin-to-skin.

Whatever...

...

Okay, Syuko looks again. Her view of Shiki is unchanged. "What?"

"Observation. Nyaha."

"What're you observing?"

"What happens if I do this for long enough~." Is she waiting for some sort of initiative?

Syuko very blankly pulls her legs in hard and knees Shiki straight in the assortments.

"That's what happens," Syuko answers, watching the great Ichinose topple down against the side of the counter, anguished, clutching herself in various different places she isn't sure to clutch. Syuko reckons watching her fall a couple pegs for once is honestly  _so_  satisfying, even if she knows she shouldn't bully the anaemic. Do unto others, blah blah.

"Could knee ya again ta make it even fairer, but I'm a benevolent one, ya know? I'll drop the rest of yer debt you've accrued today through yer actin' up."

Behind the pain-coping groans, she swears she can hear Shiki hissing "It hurts... so good, Syu...", which kind of pisses her off and is also clearly bait into doing it again, so Syuko in her infinite wisdom ignores that, gets up, and leaves Shiki for dead on the floor instead.

Gone 5pm, almost quarter past. Less than two hours to Sae showing up. Really, she does kind of have free time to kill. It turns out bullshitting ramen was less involved than she expected...

"Shiki, babs?"

It's faint, but she's there. "Grnngh. Yeah?"

"You're gonna keep the cooler hot?"

"Yep."

"I'm heading out for ice cream."

"Pick me up something sweet~!"

"Yer gettin' matcha."

Syuko, shoes on and wallet in hand from the entryway table, slams the door on what just about sounds like "Syuko, you're a biiiitch~!"

 

Oh, wait, she forgot her key. That would've been an awful negotiating experience if Shiki twigged and locked her out. She reaches back in momentarily just to grab the key off the table as well, and is just in time to see Shiki take the lid off the cooler, clearly about to spit in it.

Shiki freezes.

Then she makes eye contact.

"No."

Syuko leaves, slamming the door for real this time and locking it shut. Shiki, spooked by the most _heavy_  sound she's ever heard come from Syuko's mouth, promptly slips the lid back onto the cooler and decides to rethink her petty revenge.

 

* * *

 

 

When Syuko comes back for real, two cups of ice cream (one mango, one matcha, both double-scoop) in hand, she enters to a sight that requires slightly more intensive processing - Shiki is holding a... sexy? Ostensibly arousing? Weird pose on top of the cooler. She's also holding direct eye contact back at Syuko, this time intentionally and fiercely.

Syuko's reaction is to start tilting the cup of matcha until it threatens to drop out on the floor, little spatula spoon and all. Syuko's floor is not clean. She knows if it becomes floor cream then either Shiki's going to not do the joke or she's going to tank a days-long stomachache to pay for the joke.

Shiki stops holding the pose. "You're a mean one, Syu-han."

Syuko brings the matcha cup back to level. "What happened ta Shiomi-sensei?"

"Dropped from the faculty for harrassing her students or something. Nyaha."

"Take yer ice cream already."

Shiki does. She sniffs it, and makes a very slight face. "Pure matcha..."

"Only the best for you. Those two scoops cost 500 yen. Hard times, isn't it?" Syuko throws her wallet and key back on the table, takes off her shoes, and saunters past.

"And yet here you are, cheaping out a boil with a beer coo-- ooh, I get it~. This is money that was gonna go on eating out, wasn't it? You shouldn't have, aha~."

"Really shouldn't have, but we all make mistakes, eh?" Syuko saunters straight into the bathroom, and locks the door, ice cream still in hand.

Huh?

"Are you eating that in there?"

"So's you're not gettin' at it," comes the affirmation from behind the greatest barrier that's ever stood in Shiki's life.

Okay, sure. Shiki pulls out a coin from the back of her coat and tosses it. Heads, she begs at the bathroom door. Tails, she threatens to drop the matcha in the beer cooler.

...

"Syukooooo! I'll be gooooood! You can have a bite of mine if you just let me smell yours, even!"

She gets a completely unguarded snort in response, followed by a shaky "no".

Shiki flips the coin again.

"Pleaaaaaase! I'll let you kick me as much as you want! I'll tie myself up!"

A small cough. "Shiki, think a' the neighbours. Be considerate for what they're havin' ta hear," says the door.

Shiki flips the coin once more. C'mon.

"I... I'll make you any side dishes you want! Yeah, a platter'll impress Sae, right? There's way enough over there for me to blow her, like, straight out the water!"

She hears the lock go, but the handle doesn't move just yet. "Wait, you sure? Sure about this? Just for some mango?"

One last, final, definitive coin flip. Her fate is bound to this. Please please please please please...

"Fine. If you don't come out..."

...fuck.

It takes a moment before Syuko hears Shiki resume the sentence, and it sounds unexpectedly dejected. "I'll just, um, start working on the sides, then..."

She disengages the door. "Babs. Okay. Let's swap. You're makin' me kind of sad now. Here, here's yer mango."

"Nyaha..." Shiki proffers the matcha, and accepts the mango. Somehow... somehow, she feels a little depressed about it, but she takes her first small bite anyway.

Syuko obviously has no complaints with the matcha. "What kinda sides were ya thinkin'?"

Mango iciness soothing her wounds, Shiki lets the straighter-running thoughts in her head fall out of her mouth for once in a while. "Uh... some light meat cuts. A cold salad. Fry up some rice? Def can whip up gyoza, although I'll need to stick around while Sae's here then to get that done--"

"Sure. I think the mess'll look more forgivable wi' you in it, anyway. An' sides comin' in durin' the meal sounds like good fare. Be runnin' like our own lil' ramen place, really."

"Nyaha~. Broth from a tiny cooker, meat from a beer cooler."

"Everythin' sourced from a sanity-free environment."

"Except the noodles."

"Yeah, shame about those." Syuko eyes the counter, which her eyes have finally gotten adjusted to from the constant exposure. Hell, Shiki really did bring a banquet and a half.

"Eh. Alright, Professor Ichinose - get that mango down you, an' then I'm ready ta watch an' learn."

"Nyahaha. Chief Assistant Shiomi, good to have you on board~."

 

* * *

 

 

An hour and a point-five of side-dish preparation actually flies by when you're capable of getting distracted and periodically juggling kettles of hot water, but Syuko's little two-person table is now looking healthily fancy with its loaded plates (thank you, photoshoot with some household company, for the complimentary crockery), and there's still Shiki's gyoza to come.

The buzzer goes off, and once she quickly carves a last few slices from a loaf of kamaboko, Syuko runs around to the door and peeks through. Yep, that's Sae, yukata'd up and looking slightly fazed having to wear it here, yet refined in the face of an imperfect situation. She's fashionably a little _early_.

The door opens. "Syuko. Good evening tae ye. Sorry about the formal wear, since A have an occasion later tonight wi--"

"No worries! No worries, come on in. Table's laid out, so sit yerself down."

Sae's attention is immediately stolen by the mass amount of _work_  that's happened in here. Lord, Shiki was not joking...

"Oh, yeah, uh, Shiki'll be out in a jiffy. Hope you don't mind her stickin' 'round, because she's got some gyoza she's real proud of."

"So A see." She spots little segments of dough, ready to be rolled out into wrappings, and a bowl of the filling. "The ramen, then?"

"Aha! Yep! Gotcha." Syuko runs back around to the work side of the counter, reaches into an open cupboard for two bowls, and hands the plate of impressively thinly sliced kamaboko to Sae. "Take that ta the table?"

"Thank ye." She does, and then comes back to the counter.

"Stand back, I think," Syuko motions, picking up the pressure cooker. "Cooker's been off the heat for a bit, but... let's see how much pressure it's still got."

"What kind o' ramen is--" Sae jumps back slightly as Syuko points the hiss of remaining high-pressure steam straight up into the extractor. "What kind o' ramen is it?"

"It's tonkotsu~." Shiki's just gotten out of the bathroom, clearly, because her hands are still wet and she's shaking them off. "Or, uh, kind of tonkotsu? Tonkotsu-approaching. Nyaha."

"Good evening tae ye as well, Ichinose," Sae responds. "Much kind o' ye, providing the ingredients tonight."

"Aww, 'lax up a little. I'm just doing me, and Syuko here's reaping the benefits. How's the broth looking?"

Syuko finally has the lid off. "Well, it's not thick like tonkotsu, but it does look pretty darn good."

"Smells great from here too."

Sae's bowl first - Syuko pours some still _respectably_  hot broth directly in, and then nabs a serving of slightly floured-up noodles from a different bowl and drops them in too. Wow, it's actually looking pretty fantastic. A pro job.

The chashu's been out for a couple minutes and sitting in a bowl floating in an ice-cold water bath in the sink that Shiki set up, and Syuko sees why once she picks it up to work with it - still not quite fully cooled, cutting it cleanly slightly stymies her, but eventually she gets it sliced _somehow_ , and that's what matters to everyone in the end.

Sprinkle of some pre-chopped scallions and shallots, lay on some slices of the freshest chashu Sae'll ever encounter, and that's a perfunctory bowl ready. Syuko places that back on the counter, where Sae's about to take it before Syuko holds up a hand to signal: 'not quite done just yet', and quickly prepares up her own bowl to the same point.

"We've got some eggs, too."

"This chashu's a fair ways unlike what A've seen afore, but it doesnae look bad at all."

"It came outta this," Syuko chirps, tapping the beer cooler, then cracking it open and reaching inside for the two eggs.

"A... drinks cooler?"

"Yep."

"Ye cooked pork in a drinks cooler?"

"Magic, in't it? Ask Shiki an' she'll explain." Syuko dunks the eggs in the ice-water sink, then peels them and examines them. "I reckon that's alright enough. Proof's in the tastin'." She drops one lightly in Sae's bowl, and one in her own.

Sae is not quite sure what to make of the situation, nor how she is meant to proceed in it.

"Anyway! Down ta the table we go. Shiki's gyoza'll be up in a bit, right, Shiki?"

"You got it~."

Sauntering around the counter one final time, Syuko plops herself at the other end to Sae, who is examining her bowl, the spread in front of her, Syuko, the kitchen counter, Shiki, and probably the events of the day that led up to being here in turn.

"Thanks for the meal, then!"

"Thank ye for the meal." Sae still hasn't picked up her chopsticks.

Shiki watches on from the kitchen area, content in a rarely honest way with the evening's effort, and the chance to kick back now.

Syuko digs in straight away, on a tremendous appetite she's suddenly aware of now. Kitchen-work really is the cruelest taunt you can play on your stomach!

The ramen broth definitely isn't like a traditional tonkotsu, but it has that well-defined pork flavour nevertheless, and a good slickness to it that makes Syuko feel warm inside. The chashu's interesting! Soft and tender in an atypical kind of way, befitting of how it just came out of the boil a couple of minutes ago. The noodles definitely sit well - the very light dash of flour was a good move for some volume and texture - and the egg... yolk's firmed up juuuust a tiny bit around the edges, but is still 90% liquid, which Syuko'll take.

Mm!

Surprisingly good home food. Bless you, Shiki, there's some love in Syuko's heart bound for you after all.

She's about to start picking at the sides - the small bowl of eclectically seasoned rice looks good first - when she notices Sae's just taken her first slurp of her own ramen. Ooh!

"Verdict?"

Sae definitely doesn't _not_  like it, since she's not spraying a mouthful all over Syuko's face. What's she gonna say? Soup's interesting but good? Egg's alright? Any drinks? The apartment's less rundown than she expected? They've made probably way too much food for two tonight (which Syuko guesses she can keep eating with Shiki once Sae's left for her evening soirée)? It beats instant by far? She's flattered to have this much effort put towards her? Syuko, you've redeemed yourself some in her eyes?

Sae swallows a mouthful, and lets outs a petite, but satisfied sigh.

"Mmm."

Here it is!

"Definitely outside o' what A expected, but definitely a wonderful bowl. A'm wondering how ye did the noodles?"

**Author's Note:**

> The production staff greatly enjoyed the food afterwards.
> 
> (first venture into iM@S - rankarana and Everdistant are my two main touchpoints for how i write/think of Syuko and Shiki, so shoutouts there! still fresh, but good to be here, and hope you enjoyed the food as well!)
> 
> "So when am I gettin' my pots back?"  
> "Either tomorrow, or I died trying. Nyaha~"


End file.
